Easy commenting


I need your help…again. At the beginning of this year I refreshed “Say It With A Camera” by changing the theme to Parament.

Since then I have noticed that the number of comments on blog post has dropped quite substantially.

So a quick question. If you wanted to comment do you find it easy enough to leave a comment?

Thank you in advance for taking the time read this and hopefully comment.

30 replies to “Easy commenting”

  1. Hi Mike. For some reason, I don’t get the notifications as often……not sure why. I will check my junk mail to see if it’s going in there. I’ll get back to you on that.

    Like

  3. I think it’s the same with all blogs, the responses decrease as time goes on and many readers have very busy lives. I remember going through Project365 and having to post an image every day. I did keep it up, but often didn’t comment on others as I was busy. It’s all credit to you to find both the time and resolve to post daily. However, perhaps the blog could become a weekly post demonstrating a weeks work in one go, that would give you a break from posting and readers a one shot read.

    Just a thought.

    Richard

    Like

    1. Hi Richard, I have two blogs in operation, Say It With A Camera and Highlights and Shadows. Say It normally only gets two posts a week, the weekly photo challenge from WordPress an the 52 challenge. Up until I implemented the theme change, comments were pretty steady on both post with the weekly challenge getting the most comments.

      It hasn’t helped that WordPress have decided to drop Zemanta but I’ve also noticed that previously regular commenters have not been leaving comments which maybe due to the way this new theme almost buries the comment option within the tags.

      Like

  4. I don’t see a comment option on the front page, only “Like”. I had to click into the post to go to comments, but since you display the complete post on the home page, some may just read and click like or move on. I don’t always access each post from a reader, since I have gaps in my feed like someone mentioned, rather, I may browse a particular site from time to time, reading several posts in a row.

    But yes, most blogs complain about lack of comments, people are getting used to tweeting, they just want to get their message out, not actually communicate two-way. 😦

    Like

    1. Thank you for taking the time to comment. It was only after I implemented the new theme that I noticed comments were dropping off. There is an option to comment but it’s on the same line as the tags, same colour as well. So it’s almost hidden.

      An interesting point about reading the full post and I’m wondering if I should implement the “Read more” option

      Like

  5. Interestingly mike, you’re right. When I read the post I have to go to the bottom of the previous comments to enter my own. Kind of annoying and probably your issue. Bummer 😦

    Like

  6. I’m with Tina. I was looking for the ‘Leave a Comment’ link which used to appear right by the ‘Like’ section. It wasn’t until I scrolled all the way to the bottom of the site that I found the ability to comment. A lot of people won’t bother. They’ll just assume the site owner doesn’t want comments. Maybe it’s just a matter of moving positioning of a widget.

    Like

  8. Mike, no problems finding where to comment on your new theme but if I am any indication I have gone into a big blog slump what with travel etc and have so much catching up to do! Looking forward to seeing your recent posts soon!

    Like

  9. Commenting is easy. Not sure if I have missed any posts or not. One person wrote to post once a week and that would help a lot I think. I don’t follow many blogs but once I commit myself to a good blog I comment on each and evry post- no matter. But it does get difficult to comment every day. That in my opinion would influence how many comments you are going to get. Go for quality and not quantity. Several photographs once a week is better for me than one a day. Just my humble opinion sir.

    Like

    1. Hello Yvonne, my intention is to keep “Say It With A Camera” generally down to two posts per week, “The Weekly Photo Challenge” and “52 of 2014”. On the other hand “Highlights and Shadows” is devoted to HDR photography  and the HDR community. I am working to build that up  and will be adding tutorials and software reviews as well as trying to post every day there.

      With “Say It With A Camera” it’s looking like WordPress are not sending out notifications every time to those who have selected to follow the blog.

      I actually started to notice a fall off in comments and likes in November but put it down to seasonal reluctance. I ran the poll and there was little response to it. At the beginning of this year I decided to refresh the blog look by using a new theme which I implemented over both blogs. Then I noticed that the comments where dropping off again, with you being the most consistent commenter and I thank you for that. Followed by Steve Ransome, an old friend, who said he wasn’t getting a notification all the time. Others have reported the same.

      It’s something I need to take up with wordPress, but i have found if you want support don’t do it at weekends, you have less chance of getting an answer. A quick search of the support forums shows a few others who have noticed a drop off for comments and likes, so it may be a problem. On the other hand it could be WordPress throttling traffic. If you think about it I have somewhere in the region of 1600 followers, that’s a lot of emails going out every time I post a blog post and if other blogs are the same. Does WordPress have the capacity to do this?

      Mike http://about.me/mikehardisty

      Like

      1. Well I have not idea what all WP does or will be doing. I don’t have a lot of of blogs that I follow simply because I want to be able to commnt each and every time someone posts. I have favoite blogs to which I am commited. I have a faithul group group tsat comment on my posts and tthat total is about roughly 15 maybe. There is often lots of interaction and that is what I enjoy.

        So to get back to what WP does. For a while and still at times people do not get a notice of my posts. I just let it ride since I haveo time to devote hagggliong with WP. Eventually it sorted it self out. I imagine that WP does what ever they want and we are at their mercy. Somene else told me that the system gets a “glitch in its hitch” so I just don’t know.

        You have a huge number of followers but only a handfull of those people ever comment.

        In my case if someone does not ment after about 5-6 times I delete their blog. I comment on theirs so I feel they should do the polite thing and comment on mine. But not all blogs are for all people and I realize that so I need to delete some more that never interact.

        Good liuck with all that you are planning to do. It sounds like a huge project.

        ~yvonne

        Like

  10. I didn’t have any trouble finding where to leave a comment…seems to be easy enough to find. But I was wondering where Zementa went! I’ve been trying to figure out how to get it back – didn’t realize WordPress removed it. Oh well…guess it just makes me think a little more πŸ™‚
    Hope you have a wonderful week-end. (I think your blog is just fine, by the way :))

    Like

    1. Hello Becky….you can get Zemanta back if you install a plugin for your browser. But if like me you used it to point to other folks who were blogging about the Weekly Photo Challenge, you won’t see  them. I spoke to the Zemanta tech guys and now that they are not working with WordPress they can’t give related articles the same way but they are trying to find a workaround. http://about.me/mikehardisty

      Like

      1. Thanks Mike. I’m pretty sure I don’t know how to do that, but that’s ok. Thanks for the info though. I hope your blog comments are working better for you now.
        Have a great week-end!

        Like

    1. No problem at all posting comments, fall off is normal. My website is 2.5 years old and I have had 178,000 page hits, but if one looks at my Google analytics the average time a person is on the site is about 2.3 minutes and the returning viewers has only just steadied out. When I did Project365 which is a similar thing to a blog, the comments posted slowly rose to a peak, declined to about 60% of the maximum and settled at about 70% returning visitor comments. I wouldn’t worry, folks have busy lives most will return others will not. I don’t think the page style has any bearing, unless it’s garish or too basic and yours is none of those things.

      Like

      1. I thought it was more about the them I was using Richard. It’s not so obvious where to leave a comment. Also something else I noticed. I subscribe to several blogs and I suddenly realised that I wasn’t getting the same updates from them as I used to. Similarly a few of my regular readers said they weren’t receiving updates from me the same.

        Combine the two and you will see a fall off in traffic. 

        http://about.me/mikehardisty

        Like

Comments are closed.

close-alt close collapse comment ellipsis expand gallery heart lock menu next pinned previous reply search share star